Purchasing Specialist

• A fantastic opportunity to join BWPC as a Purchasing Specialist
• Offers agile/hybrid working approach

About Our Client

The team at Bristol and Weston NHS Purchasing Consortium (BWPC) delivers procurement services to the two large acute NHS Trusts in Bristol, North Bristol NHS Trust & University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust. BWPC support the trusts in the development and delivery of their procurement strategies, offering professional advice and delivering cost savings through sustainable procurement on an annual spend of circa £600m.

BWPC are proud to feature amongst their clients two of the largest NHS Acute Trusts in the UK, with a combined total of over 2,300 patient beds, 21,000 staff and offering over 100 different clinical services. BWPC's future vision is to grow the portfolio of their clients to support other health and social care providers in the region. BWPC are already supporting regional procurement activities, working to ensure our local health and welfare providers are able to deliver whole system cost reductions, whilst ensuring an optimised service delivery.

The team at BWPC work closely with clinical facing colleagues and strive to develop collaborative working partnerships to help clinical colleagues deliver great patent care through robust procurement of good and services. Collaborative working with both trusts and other organisations brings economies of scale, sharing of data and best practice to maximise value and efficiencies for our clients.

Job Description

This is a Purchasing Specialist role within one of the six category teams at an evolving and growing Bristol and Weston NHS Purchasing Consortium. The role will report directly into the Category Manager with the Purchasing Specialist offering support and guidance to the junior members of the team. Purchasing Specialists have the autonomy to run their own procurement projects with support from the Senior Purchasing Specialist and Category Manager.

BWPC have a wide range of projects for both products and services providing a great opportunity to further develop your procurement skills. This role is suitable for an individual experienced in supporting customer requirements on a day-to-day basis whilst providing specialist advice on procurement activity.

Acute Healthcare Procurement requires the running of end-to-end tenders utilising frameworks and public tendering regulations. Purchasing Specialists will be expected to autonomously set up and run these tenders, working in partnership with both Clinical Purchasing Specialists and project Sponsors in the trust.

Stakeholder management is a key part of a Procurement Specialists' role. This will involve organising and maintaining regular operational and strategic meetings, discussing ongoing requirements with colleagues at these meeting and bringing any feedback to BWPC colleagues.

The candidate shall also liaise with suppliers and develop relationships with key account managers to help ensure timely delivery into the trust. Through this close engagement with trust colleagues, suppliers and account manager candidates should be able to identify savings and efficiency opportunities for the trusts.

BWPC are a commercial function embedded in an acute healthcare setting. Strong communication skills are required when working with clinical colleagues to interpret procurement theory & process so that they see the benefit of working with procurement colleagues and how procurement adds value to their role, objectives, and the delivery of patient care.

The Successful Applicant

• Have experience in supporting customer/stakeholder requirements that result in a saving or efficiency
• Demonstration of influencing stakeholders to achieve a common outcome.
• High standard of communication that can be tailored to suit the stakeholder.
• A strategic thinker with effective planning skills with the ability to translate procurement strategy into deliverable operational results.
• Demonstrate a knowledge of public procurement regulations.
• Ability to lead project work alone or be part of a team.
• Understanding of supplier relationship management and supply chain management.
• Be comfortable speaking and feeding back to the wider BWPC team at internal meetings.

What's on Offer

The NHS offer a generous range of benefits to employees:

• Salary between £27,055 - £32,934
• Competitive pension scheme.
• 27 days annual leave minimum plus bank holidays.
• Agile / Hybrid working approach
• There is a relocation package on offer to successful candidates
• North Bristol NHS Trust who hosts Bristol and Weston NHS Purchasing Consortium have a strong wellbeing culture. Staff are encouraged to ensure that you are looking after your own wellbeing as well as that of your colleagues. This is strongly reflected in BWPC.
• Staff extracurricular activities - Southmead charity events.
• Access to the NHS Childcare Salary Sacrifice Scheme.
• Access to many NHS discount opportunities.
• Cycle to work scheme.

Where specific UK qualifications are required we will take into account overseas equivalents. All third party applications will be forwarded to Michael Page.

Ref Code: MPYC0120235891152Z